Women’s rights are consistently suppressed in Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” while in Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”, the powerful Mother of the Spirits is revered and her daughters beaten and persecuted because of their gender. These authors were vividly depicting the reality of the repression of women during this time period. They exploit the vulnerabilities of women by criticizing all of their stereotypical feminine qualities. To be called a “woman” is among the utmost offensive insults spewed upon the feeble and meek.
In “Heart of Darkness”, the story is told through the voice of Charlie Marlow, a skeptical and prejudicial white man. In fact, all of the characters, including major and minor, narrator and protagonist are all white European men (Smith xx-xx). The underlying limits against women in this society are very evident in the narrator’s lack of understanding and emotional detachment. Ellen Rooney describes these portrayals of women as the “masculine ‘narrative of femininity’” which uses “stereotypes of woman and women” in order to affirm “patriarchy’s many stories” about femininity, masculinity, and power relations (73)(Smith xx-xx).
Without any names recorded in Conrad’s book, women are known only in relationship to man. For example, the semi-important women characters are known as “the intended” and “the mistress”. “The intended”, is so identified because of her relationship to Kurtz’s as his future (or intended) fiancé. “The mistress” is Kurtz’s African lover whom he is cheating on “the intended” with. Marlow doesn’t even grace these women with the simplest of all courtesies: referring to them by name. They are too inferior and insignificant to deserve such respect. The mistress and the i...
... middle of paper ...
...emininity Quotes Page 1." Shmoop. Shmoop University Inc., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2014.
Postcolonial and Postimperial Literature: An Overview. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
Smith, Kathryn. "Revis (it) ing Joseph Conrad's" Heart of Darkness": Women, Symbolism, and Resistance Kathryn Haynicz-Smith (Kathryn Smith) Academia.edu." Academia.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2014.
"SparkNotes: Heart of Darkness: Analysis of Major Characters." SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
"SparkNotes: Heart of Darkness: Character List." SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
"SparkNotes: Things Fall Apart: Themes, Motifs & Symbols." SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides. SparkNotes LLC, n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2014.
"Things Fall Apart Theme of Gender." Shmoop. Shmoop University Inc., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2014.
1. The protagonist of Heart of Darkness is a person named Charlie Marlow. Oddly, his name only appears once in the novel. Marlow is philosophical, independent-minded, and generally skeptical of those around him. He is also a master storyteller, eloquent and able to draw his listeners into his tale. Although Marlow shares many of his fellow Europeans’ prejudices, he has seen enough of the world and enough debased white men to make him skeptical of imperialism. An example of Marlow being independent-minded and philosophical is when he takes a trip up a river, as a break from working on ships. Marlow describes the trip as a journey back in time, to a “prehistoric earth.” This remark on how he regards colonized people as primitive, which is his philosophical viewpoint.
Asking the right questions is indeed an art form . It is however an even bigger burden to try to answer from an analytical presepective these subjective questions which inspire answers and explanations to the ultimate “why” and “how” . As readers we are obligated to carry with us an open mind, an analytical eye and room for suggestive arguments when trying to dissect a piece of writing. Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness offers the perfect platform for interpretation. With a dozen shades of foggy gray's, the short story is begging for a set of eyes that can see it through. Without proceeding too far into the novella, one can draw out a great deal of analytical suggestions as to what the title itself implies. The word Darkness seems to be a consistent theme throughout the book. So much so, that the amount of weight it carries has given it a special place on the cover. Many critics have found common ground on deciphering the interpretation of the word .The concept of darkness could be respresenting evil. However, some significant subjective questions remain unaswered: Exaclty which character in the novella has fallen victim to this evil? Is it Conrad himself, Marlow, Kurtz or the natives? All of them? Are there different forms in which this evil can manifest itself? Is it talking about darkness in the literal or figurative sense? Would we be considered naïve if we thought evil could be contained or is darkness a necessary evil we all posses and an undeniable part of our reality?
Conrad, Joseph. "Heart of Darkness." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams et al. 6th ed. vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993. 1759-1817.
The women in both Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness are seemingly presented with traditional feminine qualities of inferiority, weakness and sexual objectification. However, the power that they hold in male-female relationships, and their embodiment of traditional male roles, contests the chauvinistic views of society during Conrad and Hardy’s era. While Conrad presents powerful female characters through their influences over men, the reversal of traditional gender roles is exemplified more by Hardy’s character, Tess, yet both authors present revolutionary ideas of feminism, and enlighten readers to challenge the patriarchal views of society towards women.
Without personal access to authors, readers are left to themselves to interpret literature. This can become challenging with more difficult texts, such as Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Fortunately, literary audiences are not abandoned to flounder in pieces such as this; active readers may look through many different lenses to see possible meanings in a work. For example, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness may be deciphered with a post-colonial, feminist, or archetypal mindset, or analyzed with Freudian psycho-analytic theory. The latter two would effectively reveal the greater roles of Kurtz and Marlow as the id and the ego, respectively, and offer the opportunity to draw a conclusion about the work as a whole.
Women have gained equality with men over the many centuries of the evolution of the modern western civilization. Hence, it cannot be overlooked that there still exist many literary examples of social disregard for woman potential. Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" exemplifies the Western patriarchal gender roles in which women are given the inferior status. Not only are women portrayed as being inferior to men, but Marlow's (the protagonist's) seldom mentioning of them in his Congo adventure narrative symbolizes his view of their insignificance. There is a total of five women presented in Marlow's narrative but only three of them are significant minor characters: Marlow's aunt, Kurtz's African mistress, and Kurtz's "Intended." The following essay will examine how the presentation of each of these three women in Marlow's narrative contributes to connecting events in the story.
The novella Heart of Darkness has, since it's publication in 1899, caused much controversy and invited much criticism. While some have hailed it's author, Joseph Conrad as producing a work ahead of it's time in it's treatment and criticism of colonialist practices in the Congo, others, most notably Chinua Achebe, have criticized it for it's racist and sexist construction of cultural identity. Heart of Darkness can therefore be described as a text of it's time, as the cultural identity of the dominant society, that is, the European male is constructed in opposition to "the other", "the other" in Heart of Darkness being defined as black and/or female. Notions of cultural identity are largely constructed through language and setting and are essential to the reader's understanding of the text.
Watts, Cedric. 'Heart of Darkness.' The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Ed. J.H. Stape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 45-62.
"SparkNotes: Heart of Darkness: Themes, Motifs & Symbols." SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. .
Women have taken an increasingly important role in literature. Only recently have authors portrayed women in a dominant, protagonistic light. Sophocles and other classical writers portrayed women more as reactors than heroines. Since the ancient Greeks, however, a trend has been established that gives women characters much more substance and purpose. A definite shift from the antediluvian ways can be seen, and the overall complexity of women characters has increased exponentially. In Conrad?s Heart of Darkness, however, the portrayal of women takes a backwards step and is reverted back to the primitive, more demeaning viewpoint. Conrad employs characters that reflect the archaic perspectives concerning women. The main character, Marlow, generalizes all women and depicts every woman as living in a dream-like state merely ?going through the motions? of life.
Heart of Darkness is a story in which racism presents itself so deliberately that, for many, the dilemma of race must be tackled before anything else in the book may be dealt with. Conrad used derogatory, outdated and offensive terminology for devaluation of people’s color as savages. This use of language disturbs many readers who read this book.
In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, women of the Ibo tribe are terribly mistreated, and viewed as weak and receive little or no respect outside of their role as a mother. Tradition dictates their role in life. These women are courageous and obedient. These women are nurturers above all and they are everything but weak.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness 3rd Ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.
Misogyny, the hatred or dislike of females, is a recurrent theme in World Literature. Women’s suffrage was at its prime between 1840 and 1920. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, two stories based in Africa, show different points of misogyny, the first being from the time of women’s suffrage, and the latter being after the women’s suffrage movement. The value, view, and role of women was undermined greatly in these two novels.